Note 60 — Chapter VI · CONCLUSIONS ON PLEASURE AND PAIN.
Reading edition
"The first cry of the new-born infant was formerly considered anything rather than a reflex action. It is, however, very probable that this first vocal manifestation, accompanying an expiration, is a reflex pure and simple. Kant wrote (without, indeed, having himself observed new-born children or animals): ‘The cry uttered by the child just after birth has not the intonation of fear, but that of irritation or anger. It is not because it is suffering, but because something displeases it. No doubt it would like to move and feels its impotence, as it might feel a chain restricting its liberty. What could have been the object of Nature in making the infant born into the world utter cries which are in the highest degree dangerous? Yet no animal save man announces its existence, at the time of birth, by similar cries.’
"This remarkable conception has been much commented on, and widely adopted. At the present time many people still think that the crying of new-born infants has considerable psychic significance. But all comments of this kind are met by the objection that a totally anencephalous infant cries at birth, and that many healthy infants do not cry, but sneeze, on their entry into the world, as noted by Darwin....
"The reflexes of pains which, in later life, show themselves in the acutest manner, are those best developed in early life. Gunzmer’s observations on about sixty infants showed him that, during the first few days, they are almost insensible, and during the first week, very slightly sensitive, to the pricking of a needle.
“New-born infants have been, in the course of their first day, pricked with fine needles, on the nose, the upper lip, and the hand, deeply enough to draw a drop of blood; yet the child manifested no symptom of consciousness, and did not start once.”—Preyer, Seele des Kindes, pp. 177, 193.